


One Week, A Thousand Miles

by bookhousegirl



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Bromance, Friendship, M/M, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/pseuds/bookhousegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s one week and a thousand miles between Chicago and Denver. The highs of several perfect fall days, where the douchebag and the prince learn some things about each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Week, A Thousand Miles

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of a developing bromance, or pre-slash maybe. But mostly Tom's sad life thoughts and Gronk being a good friend and deeper than anyone gives him credit for.
> 
> On the radio broadcast for the 10/26 Patriots-Bears games, the announcer described Gronk as a guy who likes “lifting weights, playing football, and hanging out with women.” I couldn’t get it out of my mind that what if Gronk was all about the weights and the football, obviously, but also all about his QB. 
> 
> I love sports RPF. And I especially admire those writers who can writer banter and keep people in character and infuse the story with canon (which is frankly, a little overwhelming in sports) and be direct and have an actual plot (and awesome porn too). So this is nothing like that. But I live in New England and am feeling the effects as fall turns so quickly to winter here, and wanted to play with that as a theme for Tom and his season, as well as create something more between him and Gronk.
> 
> And many thanks to Mony13, who always has advice about how to proceed, and to scoopny for helping talk me through some of the finer details of the NFL (because I’m always striving for canon realism in a fic involving 87 crushing on 12). Magical fic handwaving at the little field trip they manage to take during a totally intense week. And I realize that the Patriots played both games at home, so that the distance between Chicago and Denver is more metaphorical than anything else.
> 
> Clearly this is not based on anything remotely real at all in the history of forever.

\---

Rain has washed out most of the path at Blue Hills Reservoir, making it dark and muddy. It’s past peak now anyway, but even in the late October sun, the colors of leaves are dim and burnt and pretty. They remind Tom of a collection of pastels that aren’t carnation and amethyst and aquamarine, but golden and fire and sepia instead. Muted, and just as delicate and light.

He picks his way along the familiar trail, hands stuffed in his pockets, coat collar turned up. This is his little secret. Where he goes the day before a game. He’s in his own head so much, about football, that he wants to be in his head about something else, anything else.

The smell of the fall here is definitely unlike the fall in California, or even the fall in the midwest. It’s murky, dark, and obscure. Like things aren’t quite at the end, but they’re decaying, and it’s aromatic and sad and somehow still alive. He loves it, like he loves the twilight and the shadows and the beginning of the end. Like the two minute warning, a signal that what’s just happened isn’t what’s about to be. This feeling, fall in Massachusetts, will always stay with him.

The football season is a constant sea of places and a trying undulation of back and forth, from coast to coast. In his head, Tom always takes care to try and remember something about each place each time, so it doesn’t seem like a never-ending blur of car, bus, plane, bus, car, hotel, bus, stadium, bus, plane.

It’s a relic from growing up, when his boisterous family would take trips altogether, and his mom would ask all of them to identify one thing that they remembered best from each place. There were no passes. No copying. So he got good at picking out something unique, something special. Even now, having been to places as mundane as Indianapolis (although, lovely, kind people and super knowledgeable fans) and as exotic as Rio (even livelier and more raucous than he possibly thought), Tom uses it as a mental exercise.

_Today. Blue Hills in Milford. The smell of fall and the golden sun._

Posting the resume on his facebook was a flash of brilliance by his PR team, when everybody wanted to write him off after a couple mediocre games and the haters kept hating. After all these years, nothing will stop the haters, he’s seen enough memes of himself in tutus and tweets calling him a pussy and a fag and a fucking princess and everything else imaginable. But it feels good to be in front of it this time, taking the shots, putting himself out there, riling up the fan base, reminding people that he’s a real person, not some cardboard cut out Disney prince that hops on the field for a few plays and then goes to sit on some throne while the defense holds the opposition to three and out.

Almost everyone else finds it unthinkable, now, that he went 199 in the sixth round to a team that he has played for every day of his career since then, a team that he’s won three Super Bowls with. The resume is proof though. That despite his overall sports ability as a kid, despite the years of frustration and then the fight that he fucking won at Michigan, he could have a much different existence. And it still would be a good life, a life worth having.

So Tom reminds himself every time, every place, every where. Don’t get lazy. Don’t get spoiled. People are worth your time. Things are worth remembering.

\---

There’s celebrating going on and the locker room is awash in it. They started rough (though not really) and now they’re 6 and 2. But it’s not the fucking AFC championship game. He wants to shower, do press, eat a big freaking steak, and go home to Brookline to fall in bed by nine. He shakes hands with Kraft, says, “A really good game.” He listens to Belichick insist that everybody’s got to bring all they have every day this week, instinctively nodding along.

Tom cares about the team. Yes. He’s their leader, their center, their sage. He’s not their drinking buddy, their bro, or their friend. Not in a way that friends really matter. He used to work harder for that kind of thing. He used to go out once in a while, especially in the beginning, when he was learning under Belichick and Drew, when he wanted to belong more than anything because he knew his number was 199 and there were fucking six QBs selected before him. He used to cultivate those relationships more, take time to learn things about his teammates and to really care. That the reflection of the work put in personally would translate somehow onto the field, that learning players’ hometowns and favorite music and baseball team affiliations in addition to where they were on the depth chart would make a difference when he called for a wide out or a play action. It didn’t. Not really. Not in any way Tom could see.

And then people came and went. Wes was probably the biggest loss for him through the years. They seemed to have some kind of spark together. Tom wouldn’t have ever called it magic, but it was the beginning of something. Yet circumstances always forced change, and there it was again, the idea that everything left unfinished is always on the cusp of being over, that his favorite thing is the moment before it’s not.

Tom sits in front of his locker, stripped down to navy blue Under Armour and surveys the scene. Various guys have come up and high-fived or patted him on the shoulder. He sees a text from Peyton that just says _See ya next week!_ Nothing from Gisele, but he knows she’s waiting.

Someone blasts Turn Down For What, and of course it’s Gronk, supposedly dehydrated after his TD (was that just bullshit or what?). He’s in the center of the locker room, bare chested, hat on backwards, and is rapping like the douchebag frat boy that he still is. He kicks up his legs, does some really awful pelvic thrusts, and drops it like it’s hot.

“VIP gettin’ served like tennis balls, bank accounts dizzy cause we spend it all!” Gronk gyrates in front of Tom, getting up in his space, which Tom absolutely hates and everybody knows it. But this afternoon he can’t really complain, because Rob was a beast, turning and catching every time Tom looked. It’s been a while since things have been like that. But 87 is showing signs of his old form, signs like they’re back in business. And that’s good for both of them.

Some other guys join in and the whole place is raucous and laughing and sweaty and full of life. Tom feels a little dizzy and wipes his forehead with his hand. He must be smiling because the next thing he knows, Gronk is back in the center, dancing and rapping alone, and gesturing for Tom to join him.

Tom laughs and shakes his head and Gronk calls out, “Tom, come on!!!! Come onnnnn!!!!” “G5, G6 fly through anywhere,” Gronk is shouting loudly.

“Burn the roof off, let the mother fucker burn, let the mother fucker burn, burn mother fucker,” Tom joins in reluctantly, a little embarrassed that he knows the lyrics. He throws up some standard white boy rap hand signs and shimmies around, as Gronk raises his arms and does some kind of Dirty Dancing move down Tom’s body.

“Yeah!” Gronk’s face is a little uncomfortably close and Tom lifts his head with a smile and sees that Gronk looks inordinately pleased. He has a gigantic grin spread across his face, different from his normal cocky smirk, a genuine one that he usually only gets after a touchdown or possibly a lap dance. Gronk’s eyes crinkle up as they stand there for what feels like a second too long, but everyone cheers. Gronk squeezes his shoulder and looks like he wants to say something, but Tom wrestles himself away. Gronk’s open and uncomplicated face makes a slight frown, which disappears when Usher’s “Yeah!” comes on the celebration playlist next.

“Yeahhhhh!” he yells, completely unironically, and Tom shakes his head, smiling a little bit to himself. Edelman is now Gronk’s dance partner.

Shower, change, hustle out for press so that he’s buttoning up his black wool coat as he’s being directed to the seat in front of the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts background. “Hi, nice to see everybody,” he starts, and then goes about his business, answering questions about the win, about Gronk, about the team gelling together now (Christ, seriously, they lost two fucking games okay). “Thanks for coming out.” He stands and leaves Coach to it and endeavors to slip out as quickly as possible.

Gisele’s waiting, they take a quick selfie for the facebook page. She gives him a kiss and slips away to her own car.

It was a cold day and the coming evening is strangely warmer, heavier. He sits in the driver’s seat of his Escalade and thumbs through his phone again. He’s not sure why, his eyes are out of focus a little bit as he scrolls down. He locks it and rests his head against the headrest, closing his eyes for just a second. He’s tired, of course, his body is spent, with playing hard, with perfect spirals, with taking a few hits, with adrenaline coursing through.

Gronk’s knocking on the window and Tom rolls it down to be met by Gronk’s happy face. He’s wearing the Pats hoodie from before and Tom can see his breath a little in the air. “Hey,” Gronk says lightly. “I know you don’t, like, hang out with us and stuff.” He gestures unnecessarily back to Gillette. “But we’re gonna get steak or something. And a shit ton of beer.” His face breaks into a grin. “So if you like wanna come, everyone thinks it would be cool.”

“Nah, thanks for asking though.” Tom smiles a little bit, no one ever asks him any more. Unthinkingly, he reaches out to grab Gronk’s hoodie for a second. He strikes Gronk’s chest, just below the hollow of his neck, softly, with his fist. “You were unbelievable today, man.”

Gronk’s smile is gracious. “Yeah, pretty sick huh?”

“Totally sick,” Tom agrees, a little lamely. “Let’s do it just like that against Denver, right?”

“For sure.” Gronk steps back as Tom prepares to back out of the spot. “Have a good night,” he says in a voice that’s more quiet than Tom’s ever heard Gronk.

“Yeah, you guys too. Have fun.” As he’s slowly making his way out of the parking lot, offering a small wave to a few guys who are starting to leave.

He’s on the brink. It’s going to be a hell of a fucking week.

\---

Practice early. He likes the familiarity of this, the routine. Some saying is about familiarity breeding contempt, but for Tom, the opposite is true. Familiarity breeds longing. It breeds confidence and security. In the way he is coming to know that his pass will find Gronk’s hands, today he delights in walking into Gillette, meeting with Belichick, watching film, cocking the ball back again and again and again.

Gronk’s on the practice field already, basking a bit after his stretches. He catches Tom’s eye and nods and does a little salute. Tom basically ignores him. It’s not that he doesn’t like Gronk. He just doesn’t really like any of his teammates, not friendly and sharing each other’s jokes and knowing aspects of each other’s lives, not like that.

The game on Sunday is now huge. Huge. There is hype about it being the AFC title game, just several months early. He won’t think that way. He won’t talk to the media that way. It’s a big game, obviously. And he likes to perform his best. But all this shit about Peyton and Welker and not-so-good natured joking about what it must feel like to see your ex with another man, just no. So sure, it’s an important game, but, like Belichick’s constant reminder, it’s just the next game. Tom grips the ball, the object that has made him and what he loves best. After that, it’s just throw after throw after throw.

After the defense takes the field, giving the offense a small break, Gronk jogs over. He removes his mouthguard, and tucks his helmet under his right arm. His face is all sharp lines, which are overemphasized by his buzz cut. He takes his time with the large plastic container full of ice and beverages, finally selecting a blue Gatorade, and smirks as he realizes Tom has been watching him. “What?” he asks, squinting into the sun after draining half the bottle.

Tom laughs and shakes his head. “Nothing. Just blue.” He gestures to the bottle. “It took you a long time to go for blue, man.”

Rob laughs too and reaches out to shove Tom for a second. “Fuck you!” he spits out. “Blue is my jam! Don’t be hatin on the Gatorade selection!” He does what is a frankly ridiculous five-second end zone dance for the Gatorade.

“See if you can hit me a couple of times on the outside. I’ve been finding you all day. We need to keep that shit from Sunday going!” Rob grins toothily, jogging back to the line.

“Right. Okay.” Tom pulls his own helmet back on and walks to where his offense has the ball. People don’t tell him what to do like that unless it’s the OC or your name is Bill Belichick. Fucking cocky fourth year tight ends with far too much attitude after one monster game this season don’t tell him what to do.

Tom’s passes spiral brilliantly into Gronk’s crafty hands, though, throughout the afternoon. It’s not more than often, not at all out of the usual. And if it is, it’s just that Gronk proved last game that he’s healthy, that he’s back, that he’s ready for this. It’s textbook: find the open man, make the pass, completion. This is going to be a monumental, entire team effort. So it’s not something special, not like finding the perfect rhythm between just two, not like being able to crystalize and focus his entire game on the pin point knowledge that if he rolls out from the pocket, Gronk will turn and be right there, lasered in on him too. The flash of a dazzling smile through the metal bars of the facemask that he gets in return says differently.

\---

Practice again. Break for lunch. Film in the afternoon. Tom usually sits right next to Belichick, but today, Gronk rolls in two minutes late and his large body falls into the seat next to Tom. He looks tan and sweaty and a little bit wiped out.

“Everything okay there?” Tom asks, amused, turning his head imperceptibly.

Gronk laughs and Tom wonders why everything he does and says lately elicits a laugh as the first response. “Those kids wore me out, man!” He flashes his phone, showing a few pictures of a kids event he did that day in Dorchester.

Tom points and snickers at one. “Look at you, showing off your QB skills,” he jokes.

“Yeah, yeah, we can’t all be star quarterbacks and punters too,” he grouses in return, rolling his eyes.

"That _was_ awesome.” He meets Gronk’s gaze for a second and then worries that maybe Gronk didn’t know he was just joking. He can never tell how seriously other people take him sometimes. _He_ knows he’s funny, has a sense of humor. But do other people? That’s what all the facebook stuff is for. “I’m just teasing you. Looks like it was a lot of fun for them. I’m sure you made their week.”

Gronk nods slowly, staring at the images on his phone, with a wistful expression on his face. “Yeah, it was. I like that kind of thing. Never thought kids would want to hang out with me, you know?” He turns to Tom, honest and absolute. “It’s one of those moments. Like, Rob Gronkowski, this is actually your life.” He mimics the voice of a radio announcer. “School kids in Boston wear jerseys with my long-ass name on the back. They want to take pictures with me. Like I’m a big deal to them.”

Tom bows his head and shakes it a little bit. “You are a big deal. And not just in Boston.”

Gronk’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He looks pleased. “Thanks! Although not quite as big of a deal as you, Brady.”

“Aim high, Gronk! We’ve all got to start somewhere,” he quips in return.

This time Gronk’s guffaw is hearty, loud, and completely genuine.

“So here’s DeMarcus Ware,” Belichick starts, with the Broncos’ dangerous defensive end on the screen, cutting into the comfortable little feeling that Tom has in his chest, the warmth of the unusualness of camaraderie and banter. “Here’s the d-line. And given how you played, Rob, I think you can expect double coverage from the minute you get out there.” They both focus back on the task at hand, the film, breaking down the defense, and the game on their minds.

While the coordinators go over potential coverage on Ridley and Edelman, Gronk pulls a paper bag out of his knapsack and pushes it across the table at Tom. He beams. “I stopped by my bakery. Got it for you. Those are the bomb, dude.” He makes a hand gesture that is probably supposed to be a bomb. Or a grenade. Or something blowing up with awesomeness.

Inside the brown wax paper bag is a cookie bar, with coconut and chocolate and maybe toasted almonds. The texture is chewy and crunchy all at once. “This is delicious,” Tom marvels, mouth full, earning an almost unreadable tiny frown from Coach. Nobody would ever say anything, but he doesn’t want to push it either. Big game, yes, he’s aware.

“Cool, man. I’m glad you like it.” Gronk jabs Tom’s shoulder casually.

He focuses back on the game film, on Talib, on Miller. Every so often he finds himself looking to his left at Gronk’s joyful countenance, because he can feel Gronk smiling. Instead of watching Talib on the wall, he’s looking back at his phone, scrolling through the pictures of himself with the kids in Dorchester, like he can’t even recognize that Rob Gronkowski, this is actually your life.

\---

Practice. Does he get tired of that word? He can’t. And the media’s here, which means a fifteen minute press conference at the end where he answers the same questions about everything. “I hope when I’m his age, I am playing that well.” That crack earns him laughter from the journalists and a _Fuck you!_ text from Peyton several hours later. So that was completely worth it. On facebook he also posts a picture of himself in his basketball uniform growing up and wishes good luck to the Celtics on their opening night, causing the internet to erupt once again with the complete revelation that he’s not a robot or a Ken doll. He’s not sure whether that’s worth it yet. Time will tell.

“Hey, I hope when I’m your age I’m playing that well,” Gronk sasses, walking over after the press conference. “Good one, man.”

There’s still a little bit of film to go through. Belichick is going to have them watch last year’s Super Bowl.

Tom rolls his eyes. “We can’t all be twenty-five and at the first chapter of the story.”

Gronk frowns a bit and Tom wonders quickly whether that metaphor was too deep, is now lost. His eyes are questioning when he looks back at Tom and says, “Yeah, but you’re not at the last chapter either.”

“Well, sure. No.” Tom leans against the wall as they wait for the staff to set up everything in the film room. “That’s not what I meant. You’ve got a long time to go til you’re even thinking about being my age and playing. There’s a lot separating us. Age is one thing.”

The look on Gronk’s face is far more serious than any Tom’s ever really seen, in a circumstance that isn’t about his health or his football or a call that didn’t go his way. Gronk eventually shrugs. “I get what you’re saying. But we’re both still in the middle, where all the good shit happens, right?”

That was surprisingly apt.

“Yeah, definitely, man,” Tom agrees.

“So don’t, you know, like, talk like that! You still wanna get that ring, right? You want four?” Tom clasps his hands and makes a _yes please_ face while Gronk continues down this road. “Well, I want one. At least. And I want to get it with Tom Brady. So there.”

Tom laughs at the finality of the rather ridiculously sentimental, but actually pretty nice statement. “Okay!” he says, as they shuffle into the room.

Gronk moves to sit down at a table that isn’t where they sat yesterday. Tom momentarily is struck with a second of awful social panic. It’s not a feeling he gets too often, mostly because he’s not that social and he’s not really one to panic. His looming sensation is cut short when Belichick tugs at the sleeve of his sweatshirt and says, “Let’s look at these couple of plays beforehand.” It’s a relief to snap out of the weird moment before, the surprisingly thoughtful conversation with Gronk and the worry that their friendship ( _friendship???_ ) has some sort of expectation now.

“Dude, this Super Bowl was ridic,” he can hear Gronk saying to Jules as they take out their notebooks.

When the film starts and Belichick dramatically gestures to the screen and says, “Peyton Manning,” Tom looks over briefly and catches Gronk, who is watching him.

“Old,” Gronk mouths silently, pointing to Peyton as he audibles.

Tom suppresses the laugh and looks away. Old is how he feels.

\---

He’s not sure why he’s here. He says it out loud, as Gronk hands him a tin bowl of steaming broth with mussels and lobster in it and a fucking Corona.

An impromptu Cape Cod road trip beach cookout with his new best pal Gronk seems ill-advised three days before the potentially biggest showdown of the season. Nonetheless, Tom settles back in the green camo camping chair from Dick’s, while Gronk dishes himself some soup from the makeshift fire grate.

“Dude this is so good,” Gronk nods, appreciative of his own cooking job. He tosses Tom half a baguette and gestures, saying, “This works so good to mop up the broth and shit.”

And while not examining too closely the how the fuck did this ever happen part, it’s kind of been a perfect day. A sun-drenched drive in Gronk’s Denali out to the ocean side and then up the coast, the slightly chilly salt air and crunch of sand greeting them. They stop to get ice cream along the way and he involuntarily remembers: _Gronk. Cape Cod. Chocolate chip cookie dough in a gigantic waffle cone._ If the septuegenarian lady who serves them recognizes them, she doesn’t say a word. There’s throwing a nerf football instead of a league-issued one, with Gronk insisting that he play QB and Tom run the increasingly outrageous patterns he calls out from the fake line of scrimmage. Tom doesn’t examine too deeply how easily he gives in when he knows what a stubborn little shit he could be about this, not when he sees the massive grin on Gronk’s face the first time they connect with _Tom_ as the receiver. Not when the sun is shining and all he sees is Gronk, fast, strong, capable, full of light.

“So what’s this about?” he muses, after eating two heaping bowlfuls of the frankly, fucking amazing soup stuff and working on his third beer. “Is this you, proving to me that I’m still a ‘young buck’? It’s you ‘making Tom Brady Tom Brady’ again?”

Gronk’s face is turned away towards the fire. “No,” he responds with a head shake. “You don’t need me for that. You do it all on your own.”

The smell of the sea air, briny and clean, fills Tom’s lungs and assaults his senses. The sun is almost down, slipping just to the point before the dusk envelops. This is his favorite time. When you can’t see as clearly, with the edges blurred and shapes softened. When defenses are down and what’s coming next is inevitable, but not as good as what’s here right now. The moment lingers, but you can’t hold on. It should be morose, to feel like this, to seek it out so much and love it. It’s his reminder, though, that in this life he’s a happy kid from California, he’s a college football star, he’s sixth round, he’s MVP, he’s married to a supermodel, he’s undefeated. This is what he got, this is his life, with what’s perfect now and something unknown on the horizon.

It’s strangely intense to share this exact moment with someone else. But of all people out there, probably Gronk would understand. He’s on the cusp too. Just a different point in time, just a different thing coming. Instead of the crush of darkness, an unstoppable wave of light.

“Are we going back tonight?” Tom thinks to ask, as Gronk starts to stomp out the fire and gather his gear and cooking supplies.

“Do you want to?”

“We could.” He checks his watch, it’s already eight-thirty. It’ll take them ninety minutes to even get back to the bridges.

Gronk is sheepish, avoiding his look while he loads up the Denali. “So, I’ve got this place.” 

Tom is a little suspicious, although he’s not sure why. His initial thought is that it seems like a not-Gronk move. He’s still trying very hard to reconcile the fact that there’s more to know about Gronk than dazzling receptions and utter excitement about his mom’s buffalo chicken dip. “A place? Here on the Cape?”

He and Gisele have toyed around a couple times with getting a place on Nantucket. The kids love it there in the summer, the ferry and the brightness and the gentleness of the Sound.

The place is a weathered 1950s wooden cape, unassuming and a little low-brow, but also kind of charming, in a way that mirrors Gronk himself. “This is only the second time I’ve been here.” Gronk carefully moves from room to room, turning on some low lights. “I just bought it right before the season. Haven’t even had a chance to make use of it yet.”

Wispy white curtains frame a big picture window and sturdy door jambs are painted robin’s egg blue. “It’s great, it really is,” Tom murmurs, finding that he does actually mean it. He urges himself to remember that sometimes honesty can come without hesitation when he says things, not just words that are the forced product of years of media training and a plastered-on perfect smile to go along with a decent sound byte. There’s no ESPN or NESN here now. Just him and something resembling the beginnings of a friend.

Another Gronk smile. “You like it? Good.”

There’s a fire going and he’s sitting in a comfortably worn leather chair, with a quilt wrapped around him that he thinks probably came from the Gronkowski family basement. It smells like faded lavender and some unknown spice and dampness, like it’s been drying on the clothesline after being in the rain. “I like this quilt,” he says, tracing a colorful pattern with his finger.

A low wattage lamp in the corner illuminates the rest of the space as Gronk thumbs through a book with a dark blue cover.

“Are you actually reading?” Tom asks, not meaning to sound incredulous at all, but knowing it comes off that way.

Gronk’s not offended though. “Yeah, sort of. Shocking, huh?”

“Well,” Tom shrugs. “I don’t read that much, so I guess I assume that anybody who has to make the time for football the way that we do can’t really have time for much else.”

“That’s fair.”

Tom shifts and looks over at his teammate hard. He’s been dancing around this since he first agreed to their little trip after the Thursday short practice. He can readily admit he’s not sure why he said yes, except that it feels kind of nice to have this with someone on the team, to be able to do stuff together with someone who gets it and not have it be weird or a big media circus or a monumental invasion of his privacy. And it feels nice to have it be someone younger who is asking, someone who has a probably endless parade of dude-bros and hangers-on and porn stars he could most likely be banging. That someone who has everything waiting for him, is waiting for Tom.

“So again, seriously this time, what’s this all about?”

Gronk is quiet for a moment. “I wanted to be your friend,” he says finally.

“Why?” He’s genuinely curious. “We’ve been teammates for a few years. You’ve never asked me to hang out before. You’ve never sat with me for film before.”

“I don’t know.” Gronk puts the book down, switches off the lamp, and leans his head back. The fire sends small flashes of light in the darkness. “This year seemed different. You seemed more bothered by it all, the bullshit trash talk and the rumors about whether you’d stay with the team. But even with all that, you seemed less walled up somehow.”

That part is true, and maybe it’s that someone else recognizes it in him, or maybe it’s because that someone is _Rob Gronkowski_ , the insanely talented, stupidly arrogant, supremely tough player who sometimes seems like he’s going to end an interview with flipping people off or yelling out something semi-moronic, who recognizes it, that blows Tom’s mind.

He’s felt off. Vulnerable. Worn down, sick of the bullshit, the media, the pundits, and sometimes even the fans. He’s been frayed around the edges, holding shit together so tightly and yet falling apart a little bit too.

He and Gisele talk about the end of football. About what to do, where to go, where is really home. He figures it’s California that feels most like that, with its breezy days and easy sunlight and open relaxation. But most of the time, the promise of that is obscured by this, the beautiful, painful New England fall, where every day is getting shorter, every bit of life is burrowing deeper underground.

“I like you a lot,” Gronk says quietly, achingly serious, from his spot on the couch.

Tom huffs out a laugh because it’s so stupid. Probably the stupidest, most breathlessly exhilarating thing he’s heard anyone say in a long fucking time. _I like you a lot._

Something so simple and honest, that only a twenty-five year old overly confident frat boy idiot would say. And for those twenty seconds, he believes in it. He wants it, pushing back against the darkening of the light and the feel of something like hope, or better than hope, catching in his chest. “Okay,” he breathes, in a chair in a cottage in Nauset, with Rob Gronkowski, three days before they have to play Denver. “I like you too.” Tom closes his eyes then, and doesn’t imagine a light dimming, but only growing brighter.

\---

The sky opens up and covers the field with rain, and then a dusting of snow. It’s time to fall back, which means that the 4:25 start is under the cover of darkness.

And it’s an arm reaching out, stretching wide, in a feat of athleticism and grace and it feels like falling in every way. Gronk gets called down at the one and Tom wants to give him this touchdown more than he wants to win the game, more than he wants to silence his own critics. Because this is the moment he loves. It’s an incredible, phenomenal catch and he feels blindsided by how awed he is. But it’s first and goal. And what is spread out before him is possibility, wide open. There are options, always options. And yet for him, right now, there’s only one.

Simple. He executes. They both do.

With the media, he can’t stop smiling. He must look like an idiot, because he feels like an idiot. It’s even hard to talk, hard to come up with the right words. It’s a feeling he’s unused to, he always knows how to make things sound neutral and unflappable, but right now, his heart is ready to burst out of his chest. Question after question about Gronk’s abilities, about that catch, about the touchdown.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says truthfully, not concealing his admiration for a single second.

Honesty. It’s not hard. It feels like rebirth.

\---

The bye week coming up means more practice, more work, more intensity. A small respite before the march to the playoffs begin.

It’s the second half of the season, where the work can become the grind, where the romance of tailgating in the sunshine and all the possibilities of a new season change to frost on the ground and bitterness over what could have been. It will be truly winter soon, crisp and focused and sharp, not this dulled, strange in-between of something hazy and something clear. There are two weeks until the Sunday night game in Indianapolis. He likes feeling lost in this moment though. Tom likes the haze.

“Hey, thanks for the facebook shoutout! That was awesome!” Gronk bounces happily, pulling Tom into a little hug.

“Well, sure. Seemed appropriate.” The hashtag “rigronkulous” seems less appropriate to Tom, but what the hell. Someone so blatantly larger than life making a catch like that probably deserves a larger than life, completely concocted word for his skill. “It was unreal, man. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Gronk’s eyes twinkle. “I’ve heard,” he says, teasing a little bit.

The noise around them in the locker room is quieting down now as guys go about their post-game rituals.

Tom wants to say something. “So, I want to say something.”

“I had it the whole way, man! I knew it,” Gronk replies, automatic and firm.

“No, not about the catch. About this.” Tom gestures to the locker room. “I mean about the season and what we’re doing here and what we talked about.”

Gronk’s face changes a little bit with the seriousness of Tom’s tone. “Oh right. Sure.”

“Don’t be weird. This isn’t bad,” Tom insists. Gronk looks decidedly uncomfortable.

Gronk comically tries to change his expression. “I’m not being weird! You’re being weird!”

Tom shakes his head. Maybe he is being weird. It may have been nothing, just a few random moments in one season of many, just the stirrings of companionship, of friendship, between two people who are both a little bit misunderstood, and for a couple of days, created an understanding. It doesn’t feel like nothing, though, not for him, for Tom fucking Brady, who is scorned as much as adored.

“My mom used to make us do this thing, when we were little. Whenever we went somewhere, like a family trip or whatever, we had to say one thing we remembered.” Tom looks up at Gronk, wanting him to get this, wanting him to see why this is important. “So we would never get too caught up in it. So we would always stop and pay attention to at least one thing. So we didn’t become ungrateful.”

“Is that what this is about for you? You think you’ve been ungrateful?” Gronk’s eyes are searching and his mouth is set in a resolute frown. “No fucking way, man. No way.”

“No,” says Tom. “You’re missing it, idiot. I _know_ I’m grateful. You made me pay attention. I’m thanking you.”

“Oh. Okay.” Gronk laughs a little bit, trying to diffuse the tension. “Any time, really. I mean it. We’re good.”

He knows Gisele is waiting and suddenly he wants to get home. He pushes off the wall and starts to walk down the hallway.

“You actually know the words to Turn Down For What," Gronk says, looking fond when Tom turns around. "You tried to wear Uggs to the Cape. You laughed when I made that joke about Welker.”

In the unflattering florescent light and against the harsh paint on the concrete blocks of the walls, Gronk looks big and small at the same time. If it’s possible, he seems even more boyish, like maybe he did before he wrestled with his brothers and grew tall, competitive, and strong. He’s really happy. “You said you liked my grandma’s quilt, the one she made when I was a kid.”

Tom smiles tightly. “Those are good things to remember.”

They nod at each other and turn in opposite directions to go. It’s good, that Gronk somehow knows to cut it off there, to not pile on or add additional commentary. Moments exist, beautiful moments, like laughing over ice cream or a perfect one-handed catch, and then they’re gone, making way for the next moment to invade their memories. This is one of the beautiful moments for sure. Tom files it away.

The parking lot is emptying out and the air is decidedly more like winter when he reaches the car. He gives Gisele a long hug, breathing in her warmth. He adjusts his eyes and turns over the engine, driving into the darkness.

An unexpected week, capped off by an even more amazing game. Tomorrow it begins again. And whether what happens next is impossibly better than what happened before, he can’t say. But the brink is there and instead of lingering, he'll leap.

\---


End file.
